Auggie
by L122yTorch
Summary: Auggie is gone. Not just on vacation gone, but on another continent gone and Annie's never been more lost. Is he going to come back? And what will happen when he does?
1. Chapter 1

The heavy door clicked shut behind her. The light from the full moon flitted in through the blinds, a lone lamp in the corner attempted to welcome her home. She dropped her work bag on the floor, it's thud resounding in the empty apartment. She leaned back against the door.

The sense of loss she felt was palpable, it resonated in her heart beat, it swam in the lonliness of her apartment. She didn't move.

It was one of those days, when you know that your life has changed. And part of you wants it to go back to the way it was and part of you wants to fly forward into the future so that you'll never feel this way again.

But for now, Annie stood in this painful interim struggling to catch her breath but tears weren't even rolling down her cheeks. She was too much in shock to cry.

She wanted to call someone, to reach out but the very person she would reach for is the person who was no longer there.

She closed her eyes and flashed through their history, the same way you do when someone you love dies. It felt like a part of her died.

She felt his hand on her arm as she turned the ignition. She felt the warmth of his fingers as they tangled into hers. She remembered the way she would scramble together a parting joke just to elicit the smirk that crept up his face. Her hands ached for that face, for that hand for that embrace.

The hurt was alive, it twisted in her chest and knotted in her stomach and had her mind reminding herself to breathe instead of gasping into the darkness. She leaned over and clutched her stomach, eyes wide shut. She said his name into the darkness.

She couldn't stay this way, she shouldn't feel this way, 'get a grip' were the words that lit like a stock ticker in her mind, flashing over and over.

Did he know it? Did he know that he was her best friend? Did he know…he had to know? But he left and she was here, in what felt like a time warp, an alternate universe.

'I have to move,' she thought, beginning to walk towards her bedroom. Her three-inch heels resounded deafeningly in the painfully quiet space. She pulled her hair down, recklessly removed her jewelry and began undoing her shirt. Tears began sliding down her creamy porcelain face and made dark stains on the expensive silk shirt being removed.

She dropped her clothes on the floor, nearly tripping over them as they peeled off. She turned her phone off and threw her it on the nightstand. He wouldn't call, not now. He was out, he was gone, and she was here, in a ball on her bed, not even making the effort to get under the covers.

But when she closed her eyes she saw his face. It could be sixty years from now and she would still be able to see it plain as day behind wrinkled eyelids.

"Auggie."


	2. Chapter 2

Every day at work was a struggle. Annie took on way more assignments than she could handle and found herself leaving one mission to hop on a plane to the next. Months were going by.

'Don't think about it,' are the words she would whisper to herself in her thoughts whenever an inkling of Auggie popped up in her mind.

But no matter how busy she kept herself, no matter where she was, when she closed her eyes she could still see his face. She could still smell his cologne and feel his warm arms wrapped around her as they hugged goodbye.

She dreamt of his eyes, looking into hers. She dreamt of his office, locked and with the lights off. In her dreams she would search for him, ever aware of his absence.

She had faced the prospect of losing him once as his promotion attempted to remove him from her daily life. And she mourned then too, but it was such a short amount of time. Like a bad dream that ended, he came back.

But this time the dream wasn't ending.

And she would conjure the thought of his face at the most inopportune times.

Standing glued to a wall, cautiously peeking around the corner, her gun loaded and ready to face whatever was around the bend. She would stand there in a moment that could very well be her last and listen to the sound of her heartbeat ringing in her ears. She listened but never heard Auggie's voice. Never felt the security of having him in control of the situation.

With every mission Annie felt like a little kid just learning how to swim who had somehow ended up in the middle of the pool; far from the walls on the sides, far from the security of the shallow end. She was suspended in danger and Auggie wasn't there throwing her a life raft.

It wasn't normal, to have this sort of connection. She shouldn't miss him this much, she told herself. She shouldn't dream about him. She shouldn't feel like her world was hanging by a thread just because he went away.

If there was one thing Annie had learned growing up it was that people leave, circumstances change and life is unpredictable. She was great with unpredictable but found herself floundering this time.

Annie had to make the conscious decision not to let out a heavy sigh as she thought of all of these things at the most inopportune time ever.

In some god-awful warehouse in Enfeld England she stood glued to a corner, waiting. Waiting to live, waiting to kill someone, waiting to find out if this was the day she would get shot.

She and another operative named Lucy had been following leads in London and had somehow ended up in Enfield. They had been chasing a man tied to the murder of a high profile MI6 operative. One of their sources was murdered shortly after contacting them and their suspect was on the run.

This was not the right time to be thinking about Auggie Anderson.

She turned the corner and was met with a hard blow to the face. She stumbled backwards and felt her right leg collapse under her as a punch to the ribs came her way.

The gun slipped from her hand and slid across the concrete floor. After taking a few more hooks to the face she managed to knee her assailant hard in the abdomen and got a square blow in to the corner of his left eye.

The shock threw him back and he was kneeling over her. Annie wasn't prepared for the loud POP and the whiz of a bullet flying over her. One second she was fighting this man for her life and the next he was slumped over her, bleeding profusely, already dead.

She pushed him off of her and swung her head around to see Lucy who had come to her rescue.

"Annie, are you alright?" Lucy said rushing over to her. "Yeah, I'm fine," Annie replied slowly rising from the cold, dirty concrete floor. "C'mon" she said, putting her arm under Annie's and helping her out of the abandoned building.

Blood was running down her shirt and she wondered how much of it was hers.

Agents descended upon the now quiet scene as she slid into the rental car, trying not to drip on the fabric of the seats. She stared out the window-feeling like somewhat of a failure that their assassin was dead and would therefore not be a resource for more information.

She was in a trance. Staring ahead as Lucy drove her to a clinic. Soon cold fingers were pressing against her skin and bright lights shone in her eyes. It smelled of alcohol and despair in the clinic.

It had been three months since Annie had a break, since Auggie had left. And for the first time, she really just wanted to go home.

Lucy would stay behind in Europe to chase down another mission, but Annie had requested to return home.

The ride to the airport was silent, the wait for the plane was long, the flight was tiring, the layovers lengthy and all the while she fought back thoughts of Auggie. How he wouldn't be there to greet her, to welcome her home. To sit across from her as she spilled details of the mission and sank to the bottom of her beer. No matter how bad the mission, he was always there at the end, to pick her back up and put her together.

A sad moan slipped past her lips as her forehead met with the cold glass of the car window. The whirring lights of Washington swept past her, speckled with rain drops. She had told the driver to take her to headquarters. She had slept enough and needed to drop some files off at the office.

The ride seemed longer than usual. Then again, the whole day had been in slow motion.

Finally the black Cadillac swung up to the curb. She pulled a small bag out of the trunk and carried the other. Rain drizzled on her hair and swept down her body. It dotted the fabric of her "luggage" and splashed as her heels stomped through it.

The lobby felt dead, the lights a stark contrast to the drapery of night outside. Her shoes echoed loudly with every step and even the elevator button seemed to ding exceptionally loudly.

The metal doors slid open and Annie stepped inside. The doors slid shut. She couldn't even remember the last time she was back without the prospect of leaving again. The doors slid open.

Tired feet made their way to her office, each bag getting heavier by the minute. She kept her gaze down, a look of marked sadness smeared across her face. At this point she was sighing at least ten times a minute and her entire body ached, especially the parts that were punched in.

The silence in the building was deafening. Not even the air conditioner was running. She was entranced by tiredness, disappointment, sadness and exhaustion. So much so that she thought she was audibly hallucinating when she heard a familiar voice say "Annie?"

There in a grey button-down and blue jeans stood Auggie. He took a gulp and said again in a more frantic voice, as if he himself couldn't believe she was real… "Annie?" "Yes, hi," she managed to whisper dropping her bags and floating towards him. As she closed the distance he leapt forward and pulled her into the tightest embrace.

"Annie," he whispered into her golden curled hair. She closed her eyes and breathed him in and prayed to God that this wasn't a dream.


	3. Chapter 3

The office was empty save for the two friends still locked in an embrace outside of Auggie's office. As they pulled away from one another Auggie began to fill the silence with stumbling words.

"On my way back…I heard a report that you were hurt on a mission," Auggie half-whispered. "I tried to get more information…" he gulped, "but Joan was in this crucial meeting and my bridge has been burned with Jai…I just couldn't get any information."

"I'm fine Auggie. Just a nasty hand-to-hand situation that ended with a few cracked ribs and a thousand bruises."

Annie watched as Auggie lowered his head and furrowed his brows. "I…" he breathed. "I wasn't there for you." 

"I noticed," Annie shot back. As glad as she was to see him she was also so mad. "You just left. You gave me your car and you disappeared off the face of the earth. You never answered your e-mails or calls…you never called."

The disappointment and hurt in Annie's voice made Auggie feel sick. He felt like he had let her down, and he had. They stood there in silence for what seemed like forever.

"Why'd you come back Auggie?" Annie had to bite her tongue to keep from saying…"What? did plan A not work out? Decide to come back to plan B?"

He could sense that she was holding back, forcing down a barrage of angry and most likely hurtful statements. "I…uh…it just wasn't where I was supposed to be. It didn't work out…It wasn't where I belonged."

"Where do you belong Auggie?" 

His head snapped up. His face conveyed a thousand emotions even though the view from his eyes was dark. He looked tired and sad and vulnerable. She figured that she had to look ten times worse; and for once was glad that he couldn't see the emotions playing across her features.

"Where do I belong?" he reiterated. "I belong here."

He bit his bottom lip and ran a lanky hand through his soft hair. He wanted to see her face so badly that he wanted to scream. When people described her they made her sound like an angel. Tall, with a sweet smile and doe eyes, always dressed to kill with blonde hair draping down her shoulders. He wanted to see her. He wanted to apologize. He wanted to take back ever leaving and explain that the whole time he was gone all he thought about was her. He wanted to hold her and never let go again.

"Annie…" he paused. "I left because…I was chasing an ideal. I was chasing a girl I thought I was falling in love with. I was running away…I was turned down for a medical trial that could help me get my sight back. And I was angry and frustrated and just wanted to get away from all my problems here. But the more I got to know the girl of my dreams the more I realized that she wasn't the girl of my dreams. The further away I got, the stronger the desire I had to come back. I thought it would feel right to be there but it never did. All I could think about was how I left and that I didn't have your back."

"And when I heard you got hurt…I felt sick. I know that whoever the CIA gives you will be capable…but…" 

"…but they're not you," she finished.

She found her hand raising itself to his face, her thumb running across his cheekbone, her fingers sliding past his stubble. She was just as surprised when he pulled her close to him and felt his hands moving across her face.

His fingers started at her temples and slid to her eyebrows, tracing their curve. He followed the lines of her face, the slopes of her cheekbones, along her jaw line and across her lips. He let out a deep sigh. "Dammit, I wish I weren't blind," he breathed so close to her face.

He had his eyes shut.

"You're perfect just the way you are Auggie," she said holding his face and running her thumbs across his eyes.

Any anger she had towards him for leaving melted away the second his lips touched hers. They were soft and warm and desperate. Her frame melted into his, like two pieces of the same puzzle.

She couldn't catch her breath, or stop her mind from racing. She wanted to drink in every bit of him, she wanted to savor every move of his lips, every place his hands touched, every noise he made. Which is why she moaned in protest as he pulled away.

"Not here," he whispered, his forehead resting on hers.

"Well I recently got this amazing car," she said, a smile stretching across her face, "So I'll drive." His laugh echoed through the empty hall as they walked to the elevator arm in arm.


End file.
